


Forest Daughters

by StarSpray



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-23
Updated: 2015-06-23
Packaged: 2018-04-05 20:52:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4194507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarSpray/pseuds/StarSpray
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>But she always returned to the sunlit glades beside the Esgalduin in the spring, where Lúthien danced and sang songs of snow melt and sunshine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forest Daughters

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Elleth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elleth/gifts).



“Calemir!” Nellas yelled one more time. He didn’t answer—he’d probably gone home long ago, still laughing at her, even though it was his fault she’d gotten stuck. And even if he was still nearby, she didn’t think he’d still be able to hear her; her voice was hoarse and scratchy from spending the afternoon yelling.

Nellas huffed a sigh and shifted on the branch. Her back hurt, her bottom hurt, and her hands hurt from when she’d scraped some of the skin off her palms catching herself before she fell. She was tired, and hot, and her throat hurt from yelling at her brother, and she wanted to go _home_.

She hoped Calemir _had_ gone home. Maybe he’d tell Ada where she was, and he’d come get her. Hopefully he would appear sooner rather than later. The shadows were starting to grow longer, and even though everyone knew that the Queen’s Girdle kept them safe, Nellas thought the mists and twisting shadows that were meant to confuse enemies were terrifying, especially at night, if one was alone.

As Nellas started to eye the next branch down, even though she knew it was too far to reach without falling, a nightingale alighted just in front of her. “Oh,” Nellas said, blinking at it. “Hello.” The little bird tilted its head, examining Nellas curiously with bright, beady eyes. Then it trilled a few notes and flew off, flitting swiftly through the trees and out of sight, back towards Menegroth. Maybe it had gone to tell the Queen about the foolish elf child stuck in a tree, Nellas thought. She wouldn’t refuse help from anyone, even Melian herself, but it would be _embarrassing_. She was more than old enough to know better than to get _stuck_ like this.

It wasn’t Melian who came, or Nellas’ father. Instead she looked down to find a lady clad in forget-me-not blue, peering up at her as curiously as the nightingale had. Her eyes were like stars under the shadows of her hair, and she was smiling—but not unkindly. “Hello,” she called. “What are you doing all the way up there?”

“I’m stuck,” Nellas said, and burst into tears.

“Oh, dear…” It only took a minute for the lady to climb up to where Nellas sat. “Don’t cry, my darling, it’s all right. I’ll help you down.” She used the edge of her skirt to dry Nellas’ cheeks. “What’s your name?”

“N-Nellas.”

“Well, Nellas, here’s what we’re going to do…” The lady carefully and gently guided Nellas back down the tree, singing to it so that its branches were always there to catch Nellas if she slipped, and so that there was always one within reach.

She almost started to cry again when they reached the ground. “Thank you, lady,” she said, remembering her manners as she looked up. The lady stood taller than Nellas’ father, but where she could have been imposing she…wasn’t.

“You’re welcome, Nellas.” The lady smiled and leaned down. “Would you like to learn how to never get stuck like that again?” Nellas nodded. “Then, if your parents allow it, meet me beneath this tree tomorrow afternoon.”

Nellas was there the next day, and the day after, and the day after that. The lady—Lúthien herself—taught her how to sing the trees awake, and how to listen to their whispers. She taught her where to find the best mushrooms nestled in among the gnarled roots of ancient trees, and how to call for the nightingales, that flitted across Beleriand bringing news and gossip back to Doriath’s queen. It was from Lúthien that Nellas learned to navigate the myriad twisting paths of Doriath, and how to move through the mists and shadows silent and unseen, and the steps of ancient dances whose first steps had been trod on the shores of Cuiviénen.

As she grew older, their meetings grew fewer, and farther between. Nellas roamed as far as the Girdle allowed her, through Neldoreth and Region, learning more about the forest than Lúthien could teach her. She hunted with her brother, and raced her sister through the treetops, their laughter echoing like birdsong through the canopy.

But she always returned to the sunlit glades beside the Esgalduin in the spring, where Lúthien danced and sang songs of snow melt and sunshine. Nellas rarely joined her. She preferred to watch and listen, hands busy weaving coronets of red roses and dark crowns of ferns for Lúthien and for Daeron, whose music echoed with heartrending sweetness through the hemlock umbels. He rolled his eyes at the crowns Nellas made for him, but wore them anyway, perhaps because they delighted Lúthien, and no one would say no to something that made her laugh.

Then Beren came to Doriath, Doom dogging his dragging heels as he stumbled through the Girdle, and everything changed.

Nellas went hunting with her brother in Region, where they heard rumors of the mortal who’d come to Doriath and stolen the heart of Princess Lúthien. And when they returned, they found the house high in the branches of Hírilorn newly completed, and Daeron playing his flute mournfully beneath. Nellas stood beneath the tree and peered up at the windows, but they remained dark and empty, the house as silent as though it were empty.

There were few niphredil blooms that year, and they faded quickly. Nellas wandered alone along the Esgalduin, wishing Beren had never come to Doriath—or that Lúthien had not fallen in love with him. She wished also that she had the power to rescue Lúthien from Hírilorn, as Lúthien had once rescued her.

One morning she met Lady Galadriel, standing still as a statue near the river, only her hair rippling golden in the breeze. She was clad in white, and the light in her eyes made Nellas pause. She’d never seen a Noldo up close, or even the King, and the Tree Light blazing in Galadriel’s eyes was almost as unsettling as the unnatural silence that had fallen over the forest. Nellas stopped, uncertain whether to bow or attempt a clumsy skirtless curtsy. “You are Nellas, the woodcarver’s daughter,” Lady Galadriel said. Her voice was deeper than Nellas had expected, but clear and lovely, with only a trace of accent to show that Sindarin was not her mother tongue.

“Yes, my lady,” Nellas said. She felt very much like the youth she was, before this great lady of the Noldor, and couldn’t imagine what Lady Galadriel wanted with her.

“There will be no moon tonight,” said Galadriel. She stepped forward, and pressed a package into Nellas’ hands, bound with tightly-woven fabric and tied with twine. “Speak of this to no one,” she whispered, and Nellas nodded, too startled to speak.

And then she was gone, vanishing toward Menegroth in a glimmer of white and gold. Nellas stood still for a long while, staring at the package in her hands and wondering what she was supposed to do with it.

She got her answer that night, when something woke her suddenly. Nellas sat up, but neither of her parents had stirred. Outside the stars glimmered like pale diamonds, and all was quiet, leaving Nellas with no clues but the certainty that there was something she was supposed to do. Moving quickly and silently, she grabbed her cloak and the package Lady Galadriel had given her, which she’d found to contain a supply of lembas and a wineskin filled with some kind of clear cordial.

On the ground, Nellas made her way toward the river, toward Menegroth. It wasn't far, but the shadows seemed deeper that evening, and she went carefully.

A breathless whisper made her freeze. “Nellas?”

“Lúthien?” Nellas breathed. She turned in a circle, but did not see the princess. “Is that you?”

“What are you doing here?” Lúthien stepped into the pale starlight, throwing back the hood of a cloak that seemed to be made of shadows. Nellas stared; Lúthien had cut her hair, it curled now around her ears. Her eyes were large and dark in her pale face.

“You’re leaving,” Nellas said. Lúthien stiffened. “I won’t tell.” She wasn’t like Daeron. Daeron loved Lúthien the way the Eldar loved the stars, and whispered her name the way others murmured _Elbereth Gilthoniel_ when the Valacirca burned bright in the sky. Daeron would do anything to keep Lúthien from harm. Nellas thought she’d do anything to see Lúthien smile. “Where is he?”

“Tol-in-Gaurhoth,” Lúthien whispered. “In the dungeons of Gorthaur.”

Nellas shivered in the dreadful names. “I know the quickest paths through Neldoreth to Brethil,” she said. “New deer paths made this year.”

Lúthien smiled, and held out her hand. Nellas took it, and together they ran, darting through the shadows quick as deer, leaping over fallen trees and dodging upgrown roots with the ease of long practice. They ran as they had not run since Nellas was a child and just learning the ways of the forest, and this time it was she who led the way, and Lúthien who remained just a step behind, her cloak billowing like a dark cloud in her wake.

Dawn was nearing as they came to the ending of the Queen’s Girdle. Nellas slowed as the mists twisted around them, ready to confuse and ensnare any who dared pass into Doriath uninvited or unwelcome. They were near the joining of the Esgalduin to the mighty Sirion, a river Nellas had never seen. “Thank you, Nellas.” Lúthien took her face in her hands and kissed her forehead.

“Here.” Nellas pressed the package into Lúthien’s hands. “Lady Galadriel gave it to me.”

Lúthien laughed, softly. “I would send my thanks back to her with you, but I do not think she would accept it.”

“She told me to speak of it to no one.”

Lúthien shook her head. “I will not ask you to lie for me, Nellas.”

“I won’t lie.” She would not have to. No one would ask young Nellas where Princess Lúthien had gone, or when, or how. “May Elbereth guide your way, Princess.”

Nellas watched Lúthien disappear into the early morning mists, gone to find her beloved. When the sun rose high enough to burn away the dew, she turned her feet back toward home.


End file.
